“Who do you think, sir,” said he, “I have just seen?”

“Tell me quickly,” was the impatient reply.

“Caroline Schimmel; you know who I mean.”

“What! the woman who was in the service of the Duchess of Champdoce?”

“Exactly so.”

M. Mascarin uttered an exclamation of delight.

“Where is she living now?”

Beaumarchef was utterly overwhelmed by this simple question.  For the first time in his life he had omitted to take a client’s address.  This omission made Mascarin so angry that he forgot all his good manners, and broke out with an oath that would have shamed a London cabman,—­

“How could you be such an infernal fool?  We have been hunting for this woman for five months.  You knew this as well as I did, and yet, when chance brings her to you, you let her slip through your fingers and vanish again.”

“She’ll be back again, sir; never fear.  She won’t fling away the money that she had paid for fees.”

“And what do you think that she cares for ten sous or ten francs?  She’ll be back when she thinks she will; but a woman who drinks and is off her head nearly all the year round——­”

Inspired by a sudden thought, Beaumarchef made a clutch at his hat.

“She has only just gone,” said he; “I can easily overtake her.”

But Mascarin arrested his progress.

“You are not a good bloodhound.  Take Toto Chupin with you; he is outside with his chestnuts, and is as fly as they make them.  If you catch her up, don’t say a word, but follow her up, and see where she goes.  I want to know her whole daily life.  Remember that no item, however unimportant it may seem, is not of consequence.”

Beaumarchef disappeared in an instant, and Mascarin continued to grumble.

“What a fool!” he murmured.  “If I could only do everything myself.  I worried my life out for months, trying to find the clue to the mystery which this woman holds, and now she has again escaped me.”

Paul, who saw that his presence was not remarked, coughed to draw attention to it.  In an instant Mascarin turned quickly round.

“Excuse me,” said Paul; but the set smile had already resumed its place upon Mascarin’s countenance.

“You are,” remarked he, civilly, “Paul Violaine, are you not?”

The young man bowed in assent.

“Forgive my absence for an instant.  I will be back directly,” said Mascarin.

He passed through the door, and in another instant Paul heard his name called.

Compared to the outer chamber, Mascarin’s office was quite a luxurious apartment, for the windows were bright, the paper on the walls fresh, and the floor carpeted.  But few of the visitors to the office could boast of having been admitted into this sanctum; for generally business was conducted at Beaumarchef’s table in the outer room.  Paul, however, who was unacquainted with the prevailing rule, was not aware